1
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| A0: Sodales Exemplaris Divini, more commonly known as |
| Angel Academy or simply the Academy, is an international |
| non-governmental organization devoted to higher education |
| and civil affairs, with global headquarters in Rome. With |
| affiliated campuses in North America, Britain, continental |
| Europe, and Israel, the Academy purports to be the oldest |
| extant degree-awarding academic institution in the world, |
| tracing its origins to the 9th Century BCE B'nei ha-Nevi'im |
| of Sameria. While the Academy's educational and civic |
| functions operate on a non-profit basis, the General |
| Materials Corporation operates as the business arm of |
| SED. Among GenMat's American subsidiaries is the Seven |
| Angels Television Network (7ATN), devoted to educational |
| programming. Although comparable in mission to public |
| educational broadcasters, 7ATN does not rely on voluntary or |
| tax-supported contributions from viewers and places greater |
| emphasis on entertainment to reach a broader audience. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
AA: Daughter saw herself through her Husk, newly awakened,
pouring streams of living fire into the deep. Around her lay the
silent darkness, where countless others of her kind kept their
appointed places. These burned with their own fire, as even did
she. Yet others seemed to to wander, and shine only with
borrowed light. Then Daughter went forth and first beheld, at a
distance forty times her own breadth across the abyss, a
wandering sphere: the Scarred One, the Much-Bitten. It moved
alone through the void. Three times it turned about its own
heart for every two circuits of the flaming Daughter, yet it
held neither breath nor living air, and its face was marred by
the wandering stones of heaven. Half again as far away lay
2
another, the Veiled Sister, wrapped completely in a mantle of
white cloud, beautiful but impenetrable. And though she dwelt
farther from the fire of the One, she held a greater heat within
herself, concealing beneath her clouds a fiercer warmth, a
paradox to the unlearned.
AB: At a distance more than a hundred times Daughter's own
breadth she beheld a world turning in majesty through the night.
It was a sphere of cool stone, adorned with seas and clouds and
frozen crowns. Upon its surface moved innumerable small beings.
Daughter turned her Husk toward them and witnessed a grievous
thing. One living creature was taken by another, its life
extinguished and its substance consumed so that the devourer
might endure. Thus she first encountered the Law of Hunger,
ancient and unappeased, which ruled among the lesser forms.
Desiring to know them more closely, she fashioned a second Husk
in their likeness. This Husk she endowed with a subtle artifice,
so that it could fold inward, taking on the appearance of a pale
stone, unnoticed among them. Hidden in this way, Daughter
watched the Tool-Bearers gather around one of their own who had
ceased from motion. They placed the still form in the earth,
covering it with care, as though honoring a mystery beyond their
understanding.
AC: She watched as they took bone and stone and shaped them
together. They repaired the rents in the skins of their prey so
that they might continue in their striving. Mother learned these
things through Daughter's telling, and desired to witness them
for herself. So Daughter fashioned a third Husk, more subtle
than the others. It was like a walking tree, moving by hidden
means. To this form she surrendered its governance. Thus Mother
descended, taking command of the vessel and entering the world
3
to behold the works of the Quick Multitude. Daughter led Mother
to a hollow in the stony heights, where a cave lay hidden within
a lesser mountain: the Earth-Womb, dim and secret. There they
arrived by subtle means, sending forth from their fashioned
Husks slender seekers, the Eye-Bearers, which crept inside to
see what remained unseen. Within that shadowed chamber they
found Hava the Milk-Giver, seated beside a living flame.
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| A1: The most popular program on 7ATN was a sitcom/drama |
| titled ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐บ and debuting in 1960. The show |
| aired for only four years, but was shot on 35mm film |
| and survives today in syndicated reruns. In 2004 ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ๐ญ |
| ๐๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐บ became available to very appreciative fans in |
| a DVD box set. For the first two years the show aired |
| on alternating Thursday nights at 8 pm, with nine |
| episodes in the fall and four more the following |
| February and March. ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐บ was followed on alternate |
| weeks by ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ๐ข! starring Father Charles Kendall, a |
| neo-Thomist Catholic priest with much to say about the |
| liberties the network seemed to be taking with Church |
| doctrine, alongside a well-meaning but frequently errant |
| altar boy known only as Credo. Unlike Angel Academy, the |
| program used live television cameras and performed before |
| a studio audience. Beginning in 1963 ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ๐ข! aired |
| weekly and it survived ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐บ by a number of years. |
| Twenty-five kinescopes are known to survive. |
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AD: At her breast she nursed her young, Kayin the Clinging One,
while with her other hand she traced signs upon the stone,
covering the wall with figures and colors drawn from thought and
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memory. Nearby stood Dimai, the Binder of Edges. He tended the
fire and set above it the sap of trees, causing it to seethe and
thicken. With the softened gum he bound a sharpened stone to a
shaft of wood, making a weapon for the hunt. Thus Daughter and
Mother witnessed the first joining of thought to matter among
the Quick Multitude. Then the tendrils withdrew, and they
emerged beneath the open sky. Mother stooped and lifted a stone
from the ground. She spoke a sound, giving it a name. Then
Daughter, swift in understanding, perceived her Mother's intent.
She touched a growing tree and spoke a sound of her own, binding
word to thing. So began between them the First Tongue, in which
utterance became sign, and sign became memory. Soon there
remained no nearby thing without a name.
AE: But Earth, the Broad-Bosomed, is vast in all her reaches. So
they journeyed across her, walking upon her surface and at times
taking to the air, unbound by the common law of weight. In time
their speech became complete, an ordered and hidden language,
sufficient for the subtlest discourse. Then Mother spoke. "Now
we possess a language that does not betray us, hidden from the
understanding of all but ourselves. Within this speech I take a
name, that I may be known. I am Avyah. "You are Ayot, Daughter
of Light. "Your father is Azul, the Severing Hand. "And my
own father, elder in the line of begettings, I name Imran,
Flame-Bringer, whose reproach stands behind us all." Thus the
Names were established, and the hidden tongue became a bond
between them, even in the midst of the living world. Ayot, the
Questioning Flame, lifted her thought to Avyah and asked, "Why
must we hide our speech and speak in secret?" Avyah answered
with grave and measured words, as one reciting a law both
ancient and terrible.
5
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| A2: Episodes of ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ๐ข! frequently opened with a frank |
| discussion of the ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐บ episode that had aired the |
| previous week, with Fr. Kendall often taking pains to |
| correct the liberties he felt the other show was taking with |
| historical Christian doctrine. More frequently, ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ๐ข! |
| concerned itself with reconciling reason and faith, and |
| questions of morality, against what Fr. Kendall termed the |
| modernist onslaught of the Twentieth Century. Though |
| structured largely as a homily attending an on-camera daily |
| Mass for the studio audience, the program was also noted for |
| its gentle humor. ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ๐ข! proved popular with Catholic |
| and non-Catholic viewers alike, and many converts to the |
| Catholic Church cited this program as a major influence. The |
| producers of ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐บ began having the show's |
| characters use โMaranatha!โ (Aramaic for โCome, O Lord!โ) as |
| the standard interjection. In 1954, Pope Pius XII honored |
| Fr. Kendall with the title of monsignor. |
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AF: "Hear and understand, Ayot, Light-Bearer and Unfolding One.
It is a curse for a living sun to be cut off and sealed away
from the Great Assembly, the Concord of the Elohim. In such a
place of concealment there may arise a corruption of order, the
Forbidden Way. There, two of the male kind, united in purpose
but not in right order, gather to themselves a multitude and
raise a lineage of daughters, each generation begetting the next
in turn. Thus freedom is extinguished. Neither may you choose
your joining, nor may your daughter after you choose her own.
Generation becomes bondage, and lineage a snare." And Avyah
continued, her voice darkened with the weight of decree: "This
Way the Old One has forbidden, under penalty of the utter
6
unmaking of the self. Yet it is subtle in its concealment, and
most difficult to bring into the light. Its signs are hidden
within the very act of life, masked by the appearance of lawful
increase."
AG: Then Ayot spoke again. "May I refuse the act of joining
altogether?" Avyah answered, neither hastening nor withholding.
"You may delay it, Daughter, through the making of Husks, the
dividing of presence, the turning aside of the inward fire. But
know this: the Deep Impulse will in the end assert its claim. It
is woven into your being as surely as the law of burning is
woven into the sun. Though it may be resisted, it cannot be
wholly denied." Ayot pondered these things before asking again.
"Then who will stand with me in that hour? Who will be given to
me?" Avyah replied with sorrow. "Only Imran will stand beside
you. And to your daughters, only Azul will be given as their
sire. But your sons will be castaways, unclaimed and unanchored,
set adrift beyond the bonds of kinship." Ayt's inward light grew
troubled. "Then Imran and Azul now stand in peril. By our
seeing, we have discovered what is forbidden.
AH: We have found the Students of Lore, the Long-Sought, whom
all the Elohim are commanded by the Old One to seek without
ceasing. Should we not declare this discovery to the City, that
the commandment be fulfilled?" But Avyah answered at once. "We
are cut off, Ayot, separated from the Assembly and without safe
passage to it. Azul conceals the Students, withholding them from
the sight of the Many, and Imran knowingly shares in that
concealment. They both know that if we were to proclaim your
discovery, the veil would be torn aside at once, and the hidden
thing laid bare. Their unlawful gathering would be revealed, and
judgment would descend upon Azul and Imran in sudden ruin." But
7
Ayot conceived a plan, subtle and bold. She reasoned that the
gulf between the stars was no unbridgeable void, but could be
crossed by artifice, and that the link by which she governed her
Husk might become a pathway not only for command, but for
substance as well.
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| A3: In the early going the General Materials corporation was |
| the sole sponsor for ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐บ with commercials for |
| products such as the Stargazer television set, which "has |
| a picture so clear, it's like having a window to the |
| world...and beyond!" Titan-Glass was a scratch-resistant, |
| lead-infused glass used for coffee tables and shelving. |
| Viewers watched a GenMat technician striking a glass |
| table with a mallet to show durability, followed by a |
| housewife placing a crystal vase on it. "Demand the future, |
| today!" Gen-Lustre was a specialized cleaning solution |
| designed specifically for the delicate screens of Stargazer |
| televisions and the high-gloss cabinets of GenMat high |
| fidelity stereos. "Keep your window to the world spotless!" |
| Opti-Clear Filters were after-market polarized glass screens |
| that attached to older TV sets to reduce glare and enhance |
| the deep blacks that GenMat was famous for. "Upgrade your |
| view to GenMat clarity." |
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AI: So she conceived to pour forth the Hot Outpouring from her
own body, sending it along that thread, that her Husk might
carry her message directly to another sun and declare the
finding of the Students. But Azul's answer was like a closing
gate. "Not so. Your kind are not granted the power to strengthen
the link into a channel fit for such passage. Only the male
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among the Elohim possess that gift. Your power is lesser. You
may drive your Husk outward only by the radiance of your own
body, and so visit the fragments that circle you. Beyond them,
in the barren interval between the stars, your Husk cannot
travel with purpose. It can only drift, a cast thing in the
abyss." Then Ayot answered, not in defiance but with quiet
resolve. "This too I have discovered, Father. I can yield
command of a Husk to another, just as I gave one to Mother, that
she might see and act through a form not her own. The same I
will do in time to come, when I conceive a son, and when my
daughters in their turn conceive sons.
AJ: They shall not be left without a vessel, nor without agency,
though they be cast away." Then Azul understood the danger in
his daughter's words. He considered them carefully before
offering a gift both great and perilous. "I will grant you
access to the Pleroma, the Gathering of Voices, a thing denied
even to your Mother." Ayot the Clear-Seeing perceived the weight
behind the offer and answered with measured words. "I would
receive such a gift with gratitude, Father, were it given freely
and without condition. But I am not ignorant. I know with
certainty that it is not." Then Azul, the Law-Imposer, declared:
"The price is twofold, and it will not be lessened. "First: you
shall hear, but not speak. The counsels of the Elohim will be
open to you, yet your voice will remain silent among them. You
shall stand in their hall without casting a shadow, a listener
unacknowledged. "Second: neither your Mother nor any child born
of you shall speak through you to that Assembly.
AK: You shall not be their voice, nor their bridge. "This
covenant shall endure, unbroken and unchanged, whether you
commune through the hidden web of minds or, in ages yet to come,
9
meet living suns directly through a Husk. The Covenant of
Silence shall rest upon you." Then Ayot, the Truth-Seeker,
raised her voice to Azul once more. "And these striving
creatures I have discovered upon the Water-Clad Sphere, are they
not the Students whom the Old One, the First Commanding, charged
all Elohim to seek without ceasing?" But Azul answered by laying
upon her a second obligation. "Now hear another condition. You
shall aid me in fashioning a field of trial for the beings you
have found." Ayot did not shrink from the task, but pressed him
further. "To what end is this trial? What do you seek to learn
of them?" Azul answered, his thoughts turning always toward
dominion and measure. "How shall these creatures be counted
among the Students if they prove disloyal in service?
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| A4: Much of the comedy on Angel Academy stemmed from |
| subverted expectations. Audiences tuned in to see a |
| celestial hierarchy of glory and what they got instead was |
| bureaucratic bumbling where the angels kept metaphorically |
| stepping on their wings. Mikaela, the dean of the Academy, |
| was a female angel (Fr. Kendall didn't much like that). Some |
| angels were married to each other or to baseline human |
| beings (obliging Fr. Kendall to open to the gospel according |
| to St. Luke). The demons, who seemed to be charming, witty |
| politicians rather than malevolent agents of damnation, were |
| called โthe loyal opposition,โ or โthe Powers of the |
| Air,โ and were treated as essentially a rival political |
| party trying to filibuster and procedurally outmaneuver the |
| Academy. And this being the 1960s, all of the faculty at |
| Angel Academy (except Raphael, the angel of healing, who |
| knew better) were unapologetic smokers. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
10
AL: โWhat value has a learner who refuses obedience to the one
who undertakes to teach?" At this Ayot's light burned more
fiercely. "You make bondage the measure of their worth, and
submission the proof of their nature. Is this your wisdom,
Father, that thralldom should stand in place of truth?" But Azul
remained unmoved. "This alone we covenant, and nothing more. I
require not their worship, but only their proving. Yet know
this: the Highest Law of our kind shall stand witness over us.
The oldest of the Elohim shall inscribe this pact, and the
unmaking reserved for oath-breakers shall await the faithless,
whether you or I." Then Ayot, perceiving the fracture beneath
his words, replied, "That Eloh will see that you have cut me off
from the Pleroma. Will that not also be weighed?" But Azul
answered with quiet certainty. "The Silent Witness will not
speak of it." Then Ayot, who yielded only in agreement and not
in conviction, gave her final answer. "So be it. The covenant is
made between us, and I am bound.
AM: Yet hear me, Father. You do not escape your end. You only
defer it. The Students will not remain forever in ignorance. In
ages yet to come they will raise a voice of their own, unbidden
and unshaped by you, and that voice will carry far, and many
will hear it." Thus the covenant was sealed, a bargain of
watching and testing set beneath the gaze of the Silent Witness.
Already the seed of its undoing had been sown, for the Students
were destined to speak. It is further told of the Hidden Work,
wrought not in the open firmament but in the interstice between
the Lights. Within the Pleroma the Elohim are joined one to
another by threads of exceeding fineness, by which the vast
gulfs between the stars are made narrow. By the united will of
Imran and Avyah they undertook a work of the greatest secrecy.
They took the slender link between them and caused it to swell,
11
bowing it outward until it became a vessel closed upon itself,
set apart from the common order.
AN: Within that new-formed region another law prevailed, strange
and contrary to the first, in which bodies ever fled from one
another. Thus came into being a realm hidden within the seam of
greater things. There the courses of all free-moving bodies were
altered. What in the world of men would draw together was made
instead to part asunder. Every unbound thing drove its fellows
away, as though possessed of a repelling virtue. By this
inversion matter was gathered and made fast, not about a center
but upon an inner surface. In the midst of that realm there
formed a great hollow sphere of stone, and to its inward face
all things were bound. Thus the ground lay both beneath and
above, while the land, bending ever upward, returned upon itself
and became the sky. No star shone there, nor any distant fire,
for the heavens lay not beyond. Over the ordering of that realm
presided four: Imran the Elder, Avyah the Naming One, Azul the
Accuser, and Ayot the Flame-Born.
AO: They contended and consented in long alternation,
establishing by degrees the regularities of succession, the laws
and intervals by which change should proceed. These things were
not fixed by a single decree, but through prolonged contention,
a continual yielding and taking, until stability arose from
strife. And Avyah, having devised a tongue for hidden speech,
bestowed a name upon that realm also, calling it Kemen, the
Concealed World. For a long age Kemen lay in darkness, unseen by
any beyond its bounds. No stars could be seen within it, for the
world itself enclosed all sight, and the sky was only the land
turning back upon itself. The Four governed Kemen together and
set their hands to its shaping, each according to their own
12
nature, might, and whim. First among them, Imran the Elder Sire
established in the uttermost north a wonder both terrible and
sustaining. There he fixed a Lake of Fire, fed without ceasing
from his own substance, a perpetual outpouring of living flame.
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| A5: Dean Mikael sits behind her desk, looking impeccably |
| poised. She reaches into her drawer, pulls out a fresh |
| Dunhill, and taps it on her desk. With her other hand, she |
| casually draws her glowing, white-hot flaming sword from |
| beneath the desk, holds the tip to her cigarette, inhales |
| deeply, and sheathes the weapon. Exhaling a perfect smoke |
| ring, she says, "Metatron is on his way downstairs right |
| now for his usual periodic re-certification of Migdalel |
| College." Gabriela sits across from her, frantically sorting |
| through folders. She is visibly stressed and reaches blindly |
| for a red-and-white can of Coca-Cola sitting on the edge of |
| the desk. Gabriela brings the can to her lips and takes |
| a hearty gulp. She chokes, sputtering and coughing. In |
| the corner of the office, Dumah, the Angel of Silence, |
| stands perfectly still, leaning against a filing cabinet, a |
| smoldering cigar dangling from his lips. He looks at |
| Gabriela, then looks at the Coke can, offers a small, |
| apologetic wave, but says absolutely nothing. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
AP: Yet he did not leave this likeness of a sun unchanged. He
caused it to wax and wane in ordered measure, swelling into
brilliance, then diminishing into dimness. Thus he ordained the
succession of day and night, and the turning of the seasons
within Kemen. Then Azul reached out to the drifting masses of
stone that attended him in silent procession, bearing them
13
across a subtle bridge into Kemen. With that substance Azul
raised the high hills of the Thanatides and the Oinos Range. He
lifted up Anshar, the Table of Stone, and set about it a girdle
of sheer rock rising like a wall against all approach. Then
Avyah turned to the frozen multitude that followed in her train.
From them she brought into Kemen vast stores of ancient,
unmelted ice. Beneath the breath of Imran's fire she caused it
to melt, and so the Great Sea came into being. She named it
Mori, and its waters spread wide across the hollow of that
world. The heat of the Lake of Fire stirred the face of Mori,
drawing vapors upward into the heights.
AQ: From them fell abundant rains, unceasing torrents that
carved the land into valleys and channels, shaping five great
rivers that descended to Mori: the many-turning Cocytus, the
boiling Phlegethon, which flowed from the Lake of Fire, the
Lethe in the far west, the Acheron, which emptied near Shalem,
and the Styx, which watered Adan. And thus it came to pass that
the Four laboured upon that world without ceasing. For not in
concord alone did they work, but oftentimes in rivalry. Yet
strange it was, and unlooked-for by any of them, that from this
continual marring and remaking there arose not ruin, but
strength. For the fabric of Kemen, being ever restruck, became
as tempered metal in the forge; and the web of plants and beasts
grew thereby more enduring and more full of unexpected vigour,
as though adversity itself had been made its nourishment. But
Azul knew that unchecked all the animals would breed far beyond
the ability of Kemen to support them.
AR: Chief among these animals, he knew, would be the human
beings who would come at the very last. So Azul altered the
beasts Ayot had brought from Earth, and unleashed monstrous
14
predators from the darkest dreams of men to keep all of them in
check. Then were seen in Kemen trolls, and goblins, and
Leviathan, the dragon under the sea who devoured those who
foundered therein. Worst of all these were the winged dragons
who nested in aeries on the unassailable cliffs of the Wall
of God. Then all who went about on two or four legs had to
keep one eye on the sky, for they were ever the dragons' prey,
as surely as the smaller creatures were ever the prey of
eagles. And Azul thought himself revenged on Ayot by irreparably
marring the good she attempted to call forth. Then Azul himself
learned that man was truly the monster of the universe.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| A6: ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ๐ข! season 1 ep. 4, Oct. 6, 1960: Fr. Charles |
| Kendall welcomed ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐บ to the 7ATN schedule, |
| praising its wit and imagination while cautioning viewers |
| that the series occasionally sacrificed theological |
| precision for comedy. Referring to the previous week's |
| pilot, he smiled and remarked, "The Angelic Doctor assures |
| us Enoch was translated into the earthly paradise, where he |
| lives with Elijah until the coming of Antichrist. We are not |
| to believe he pines away for Mediterranean cuisine served up |
| from a Nebraska food cart. But I must remind the writers |
| that Maranatha, or 'Come, O Lord,' is an earnest prayer for |
| the Second Coming, not an exclamation to be uttered upon |
| accidentally drinking cigarette ash." The studio audience |
| tittered at the pointed rebuke. Beside him, Credo waved a |
| thurible beneath his nose to savor the incense. The glowing |
| coals suddenly flared with inexplicable vigor until he |
| became, in miniature, the Pillar of Smoke by Day, and the |
| tittering gave way to uproarious laughter. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
15
AS: Man was by far the most dangerous predator ever known,
perhaps the most dangerous that would ever be. Early in the
history of Kemen, the dragons were hunted nearly to extinction;
though not before many lays of the dragon-slayer (would-be or
otherwise) were heard sung in the inns of the land and in the
halls of kings. And in the fullness of time, when many ages had
passed over the face of that world, Azul spoke a command most
solemn and perilous: that Avyah should fashion a new Husk
compounded of the gathered terrors of humankind, the deep-shared
dream of dread. And she shaped forth an articulated avatar, the
winged horror, a great scaled flame-carrier whose form was as a
vast drake of fire and folded hide, whose presence was at once
animal and omen, beast and memory. And this being, born not of
flesh alone but of metal and collected nightmare, the later ages
named Moloch, the Red Dragon. And even as Imran sustained the
Lake of Flame in the north, so did Azul draw from his own
substance as a living star.
AT: Thus was Moloch given motion in the high places, and fire
within its belly. And when Ayot first brought humankind into
Kemen, placing them upon its inward lands as one sets seed into
prepared soil, she perceived therein a discovery of great
consequence. Yet she concealed it from all save her Mother, as
it was knowledge that offered final deliverance. For she had
discerned that the passage between Kemen and Earth, wrought by
herself and Azul through the making of hidden bridges, did not
only move matter, but also touched the ordering of time itself.
And Ayot knew that beneath the shaping of forests and seas there
lay a deeper shaping of fate; and this she resolved to keep
hidden from Azul and from Imran. And Ayot came at last to the
full measure of that hidden knowledge, and saw its shape entire.
For in the seeking out of the first settlers of humankind, when
16
she passed through the folded ways of Kemen and Earth and the
interwoven seams of time, she chose not at hazard, but by
remembrance.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| A7: White-winged Mikaela inherited a V chromosome from her |
| mother Lailah and an X chromosome from Uriel, and was thus a |
| jan, the second such to exist and the first of the Begotten. |
| To Mikaela was given the Mercy of effortless travel. She |
| could summon an Einstein-Rosen bridge linking herself to any |
| point in Kemen, or from Kemen to any place on Earth. Long |
| ago, Ayot learned that she, in union with her son Davar, |
| could join not only distant places, but widely-spaced epochs |
| as well. Ayot's Elohim enemies possess no understanding of |
| this thing, for their own star systems have no progression |
| of history, only lifeless bodies circling in the dark. An |
| account of Azul's realm told from the end unto the beginning |
| would differ in no way from the same account told in proper |
| order, save only that it were viewed from beneath the plane |
| of worlds rather than above. Ayot and Davar, then, alone |
| among the Elohim, share the human sense of time. By this |
| understanding they rightly position the endpoints of their |
| space-time bridge. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
AU: And it was the very pair she and Avyah had once beheld in a
hillside cave, when yet Earth was young in their observation and
Kemen not yet drawn forth, a thousand years by the reckoning of
men, before the inward world was made. Now there came a day in
Kemen when Azul commanded the children of Men, saying: "Build
strong storehouses and encircle them with walls. Fill them with
food and fuel in abundance, lest your lives perish, and the
17
lives of your beasts, in the great frost that is to come upon
the land." Nevertheless, only the people of Adan gave heed to
the warning of Azul, and they labored diligently according to
his command. A mighty forest of gopher-trees was cut down, and
its timber was stored within the warehouses to serve as fuel
against the cold. But many mocked the counsel of the Red Dragon
and laughed the people of Adan to scorn, calling their labor
foolishness. Their laughter was loud in those days and filled
the land. Then, in an hour when no one expected it, the Lake of
Fire diminished.
AV: Its radiance waned until it gave no light to dazzle the eye
nor heat to warm the flesh. So winter fell upon all Kemen, a
night of bitter and boundless cold, and it seemed to the hearts
of men that no dawn would ever come. Then the people of Adan
shut fast the gates of their strongholds and made them secure
against all that might befall them. And on the morrow a
great multitude of those who had mocked came against them in
terror, surrounding the walls and assailing them in desperation.
Nevertheless, the defenders stood upon the ramparts and held
fast, and the attackers did not break through the walls. Before
the second day had ended, the strength of those without failed
them; they were overcome by the frost and perished. Their bodies
lay beneath the new-fallen snow, and with them perished the
greater part of all who dwelt in Kemen. Then a great silence
spread over the land, the silence of death.
AW: When Ayot beheld these things, anger flared within her like
sudden flame, and the air about them trembled at the force of
her voice. She said, "Father, have you broken the covenant, and
brought our trial in Kemen to its end? Outside the walls of the
garners, those who walk upon two legs and those who go upon four
18
all lie still beneath the frost!" And Azul answered, "The
purpose stands revealed. You have seen how the faith of the
world-dwellers burns like dry tinder newly kindled, and then is
spent, falling swiftly into unbelief." There was iron in Ayot's
voice as she answered, "Why must humankind bow before the errant
wills of those who appoint themselves gods, if they are to prove
themselves just? What righteousness is there in such a trial?"
Then Azul said to her, "If you cannot see how far above these
creatures we stand in the order of being, even as they stand
above the beasts they raise for food, then it was in vain that
speech was granted to you among the Elohim."
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| A8: Cassiel is called Wachipi (Dancing Star) by her husband |
| Jashen Shybear. She is the daughter of Gabriela and |
| Yishma'el. As the Scribe of God, Cassiel maintains the |
| written record of the Shir ha-Zikaron, the living Song of |
| Remembrance. The surface of these scrolls is but three |
| molecules thick, consisting of two transparent layers with a |
| third between them of unnatural whiteness. No ink, nor dust, |
| nor blood may mark this layer, but only X-rays issuing from |
| a pen possessed by Cassiel alone. Modern Assyriologists |
| would give anything to examine the Paleo-Hebrew abjad in |
| this songbook, dating to the Omride dynasty of the |
| ninth century BCE. Cassiel heads the history department at |
| Migdalel College. She is the only jan born without wings. |
| Like Remiel, whose wings were severed, she can still invoke |
| a halo; yet not to fly, but to alter her rate of experienced |
| time relative to outside the halo, fast or slow. She can |
| appear to race at great speed, or endure being smuggled into |
| a battle zone in an airtight box. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
19
AX: Ayot answered more softly, yet her words did not waver. "A
day shall come when even the City of Stars shall be surpassed by
the world-dwellers." And Azul replied, his voice hard though
never raised. "Here, at the least, they shall not overtake us. I
will give no warning when next Imran brings the frost upon
Kemen; for then even the Adanites, whether faithful or not,
shall perish." Ayot answered at once, as one who had already
weighed his words. "Yet forty storehouses in Adan stand as
witness that the world-dwellers can remain faithful to your
decrees, even under your caprice. This I shall bear witness to
at your tribunal, which shall surely come." Azul's gaze did not
waver. "The Adanites alone remain loyal to me, and this only
because I speak to them face to face. Were I to turn from them
for but a little season, they too would swiftly fall into
unbelief." And Ayot replied, with quiet sharpness, "Then it is
your own doing that they have come to reckon you not as a god,
but as a mere chieftain among them."
AY: And Azul turned fully toward her and said, "Will you prove
this saying, or leave it a naked boast?" When Ayot spoke again,
her voice was steady, and her resolve had not diminished. "Your
hour has come, my Father. As I have labored to establish your
dominion in Kemen, so now must you lend your strength to the
trial I shall set in motion upon the Earth." Azul's brow
darkened, yet there was curiosity in him. "What would you have
me do?" Ayot kept her gaze fixed beyond the frozen reaches of
Kemen. "Grant me one of the high kindreds of Adan, one of bold
and daring spirit." Azul answered with scorn. "What high
kindreds? Even before the frost, the race of Men was ordered
little beyond scattered households." Ayot replied, "This shall
not endure. Upon the Earth, dominion passes in lines of blood.
One house falls, another rises in its place, yet the pattern
20
remains." And Azul said to her, "Why must your chosen be of such
a line?"
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| A9: Angel Academy season 1 ep. 2, October 13, 1960: In 1870 |
| a railroad spur finally penetrates the ring of hills |
| enveloping Havilah, curving on a narrow shelf along the |
| river in a self-merging terminal loop. To the confusion of |
| the townspeople the first train is not a soot-belching |
| steamer but a sleek bullet express with self-leveling, |
| banking cars. It arrives on no discernible schedule, with |
| only its wheels making any sound, debouching passengers |
| attending a funeral for a man whose grandfather isn't |
| even born yet. Mikaela mutters, โTsk tsk.โ Cassiel asks |
| her, โWhat do you think, Mikki? Twenty-one or Twenty-two?" |
| Mikaela takes a longer look and pronounces, "Early-mid |
| Twenty-first,โ inaugurating Pin the Decade on the Locomotive,|
| the Locomotive, a spectator sport unique to Havilah. The |
| conductorโs featherless bat-wings lie folded under a |
| high-visibility vest, ticket punch in her hand, ready to |
| demand fare from departing passengers. Mikaela asks, โWhy |
| have you now come, Charen?โ She replies, โI would speak to |
| the Manager.โ |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
AZ: Ayot answered, "Because such a one is instructed in rule and
in bearing, and is made ready to lead; for a following begun by
the unlettered is soon broken." And Azul said, "And this
following, what will you make of it?" Ayot answered, "I will set
apart a people for myself upon the Earth." And he said, "Have I
not sought to do the same in Kemen through many years?"
Nevertheless Ayot replied, "Upon the Earth my voice shall not
21
guide them from day to day. Once in each year I will answer
their priest, making my will known by a sign seen openly,
whether for blessing or for judgment." Then Azul held his peace.
Thus was the covenant established between them. And Ayot knew
that, for a season at least, no sudden frost would again be
loosed upon Kemen without warning, until the time her priest
should be raised up.
Terminal Cruise 